Magazine Design
Skills & Tools Used
InDesign
Photoshop
Illustrator
The Project
For this project, I created an 8-page magazine using Adobe Creative Cloud applications. The subject of my magazine was 60s and 70s music and the pictures used were found on Google and Unsplash. The target audience is fans of older music with a focus on a younger audience because of the use of brighter colors and non-traditional layouts. To further help me with this magazine's creation, I used a media kit that had specifications to help me in choosing and making advertisements as well as other elements of the magazine.
The Process
The initial step of creating this magazine was developing idea drafts which helped me figure out what style and feel I wanted for this magazine. After developing the drafts, I started creating the pages in InDesign with bi-weekly critiques from my peers. Each page of the magazine utilizes grids, guides, paragraph styles, character styles, and proper image file management. Each image has at least 150 actual PPI and the magazine was printed on a KM C1100 toner printer.
Magazine Idea Drafts
Idea drafts for the magazine cover and half page advertisement.
Idea drafts for the feature spread.
Idea drafts for the department pages and masthead/table of contents.
The first step of designing this magazine was to put together drafts of our original ideas to work from. Above are the first drafts I made. While my magazine ended up having a very different style and target audience, these designs were a good jumping off point.
The Final Magazine
These are photographs of my final magazine, taken in a photo studio. Compared to my original designs, they are much more colorful and apply more to 60s and 70s music rather than rock and roll specifically, which was my original idea. For the cover, I wanted to reference the music applicable to the theme of my magazine without featuring an image of the band or artist specifically, which is why I chose that image. The main goal of my masthead page was to allow the half-page ad to blend in with the design for a more cohesive look, which I think I achieved. For my department pages and feature spread, I used bright colors and interesting layouts to draw the reader in and the goal of my back page advertisement was to be as simple and clean as possible.